The annual Cathedral City tournament, in the Palm Springs, California, area, opens today. The event is now named for Mary Nutter, who died last summer. By my count, 37 teams are on hand. These include several highly ranked squads, such as Oklahoma (1/2), Tennessee (4), Florida (5), Missouri (7), Cal (8), LSU (10/11), and Oregon (11/9). The master schedule is available here.
Washington used a first-inning grand-slam homer from pitcher Danielle Lawrie and some late insurance runs to defeat Georgia by a score of 9-3 in tonight's late game. The win gives U-Dub a spot in the best-of-three championship series against Florida starting Monday (Georgia had defeated Washington earlier today, 9-8 in nine innings, to force tonight's rematch). The Huskies thus claimed "top dog" status over Georgia on their side of the bracket. Florida got a two-out grand-slam homer from Ali Gardiner in the bottom of the seventh to edge Alabama 6-5. The Crimson Tide made a strong recovery in the tournament after looking "not ready for prime time" in an opening-round loss to Michigan. But, as a result of tonight's heartbreaking loss to the Gators, Bama is now eliminated. Lowrie's and Gardiner's grand-slams are among four that have been hit so far in this World Series.